Customer relations with a human touch
Nigel Fusedale
Head of E-Systems Management Group, EMEA Computers
Toshiba Europe
24th March 2009
Overall since January 2004. For the first two years this was only periodically, based around projects. Since April 2006 this has been a continuous business relationship (see below).
Key activities are two areas:
1. Continuous Siebel CRM & Siebel Analytics key-user support: problem diagnosis, call management & escalation control, issue resolution, informal & formal training on existing features, support document maintenance;
2. Specific project activities: project management, business needs analysis, matching business needs to system features, system testing, formal training on new areas, end-user documentation & managing user-acceptance testing processes.
Work under 1 is covered under an SLA with regular quality reviews to ensure both parties are happy with the activities and delivery.
Tadpole demonstrated early on a very good understanding of Siebel SW as well as an excellent human touch which makes them an ideal partner to interface between our technical systems team & the business users of Toshiba's Siebel systems. Their in depth knowledge of CRM as a business process has been immensely helpful in allowing Toshiba to extract real value from our CRM systems and processes. This has worked in both Sales and Marketing areas. Furthermore the philosophy of the Tadpole Company which is very people oriented, fitted well with Toshiba corporate culture.
They are very professional & knowledgeable at all times, but that never stops them being human - people who feel, think and react like others. This skill helps them understand Toshiba employees (at all levels and across many skill groups) and creates empathy that allows work to be done in a very positive and enjoyable business atmosphere. This leads directly to better results.
Tadpole activities have directly lead to an increased acceptance of CRM as a business process inside Toshiba computers EMEA. This has been the case in marketing and in sales. They have helped Siebel users understand the intricacies of the complex Siebel SW such that users could extract more value from their interactions with the SW. With the internal development team Tadpole have directly contributed to an increase in awareness of user needs, more creative solution finding and an appreciation of the human side of system development to balance technical skills.
YES
Any company seriously wishing to utilise CRM to benefit their business.
Sometimes we'd like to clone them and have more resources available. But a larger company might distract from one of the key benefits of their small, highly skilled team - smooth and fast information exchange and the ability of almost any team member to stand in for others. Increased language skills would help in our international team.
Probably around 100?
